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If your daughter shows an interest, like reaching out to grab your hand and bring the food to her mouth, then it's fine to let her try it. She needs to be developmentally ready for weaning as well.

Babies LOVE green smoothies and this can be an amazing first food to start them on. A green smoothie is just where you take fruits and blend them with water and deep green vegetables like kale or romaine lettuce or spinach.

One easy green smoothie is to just take a banana (frozen or fresh) and blend with water or milk and greens. You can also add pineapple and/or orange juice for a Pineapple, Orange Banana smoothie (and don't forget the greens). Just place all in a blender and blend until smooth.

Here's a fun video showing you how much babies love green smoothies, and they are so healthy for them. Also, you can use a straw - just place the straw in the glass and then put your finger over the end, lift it out of the glass, and put the other end of the straw in your baby's mouth. She will suck it out (you'll need to release your finger so the smoothie will flow into her mouth).

Have fun with this, but also remember that as much as you're excited to have your baby start trying new foods, you'll also want to be sure she is ready. Some babies want very little to do with food until they are close to a year old. I had one child that was this way, and I breastfed her almost exclusively until she was a year. At that point she started taking an interest in other foods.

Wonderful - this is something you can offer twice a week , for now, because you're really trying to increase your breast milk supply and you need her to be at the breast often right now. Once you have a well established milk supply, then you could offer the green smoothie once a day and then maybe twice a day because it's a wonderful way for her to start to transition to solids.

Nutrition for Toddlers

My 2-year old son stop eating his meals after turning one. he likes almost everything P put in his mouth and I don't have any problem feeding him before. now, he eats rice, cookies and hotdog. Of course drinks his milk. But no other food or veggies. He seems fine and energetic but I am little concern about his nutrition.

I'm glad you're concerned about your son's health because you mentioned in your introduction that he is heavy for his age, and the foods you say he is eating definitely tends to put on weight and is not a balanced diet.

So, I've got some great suggestions of things you may find that he enjoys eating which will help with his diet and also help him to lean out so that he doesn't end up being overweight and having health challenges.

The first thing I'd like to do is explain why your son is heavier than he should be for his age. White rice, cookies, chocolate, sugar, biscuits and crackers are all simple carbohydrates which means they are loaded with calories and also cause the blood sugar to spike (go high fast) and then crash (go low fast). The spikes can be coupled with hyperactivity or an inability to concentrate, and the lows are often coupled with not having enough energy and then craving sugar or cookies again in order to bring the blood sugar back up so that he feels better. It's a vicious cycle that's not good.

You want to focus on keeping your son's blood sugar steady all day long so he doesn't have the spikes and crashes, while at the same time feeding him high quality protein, healthy fats and complex carbohydrates. You'll also want to be sure he is eating at least every 2 hours during the day. If he normally reaches for his milk or cookies as a "snack" between meals, these are indications that his blood sugar is dropping.

Here are some good, healthy foods you can try feeding your son, and I'll give you suggestion on how to do this.

- High Quality Protein - this can be either animal protein like organic lean beef, lamb, poultry or wild caught fish (never farmed because farmed fish is lower in nutrition and often has food coloring added to it's pellet food so that the flesh of the farmed fish will be a bright color - for example, farmed salmon that has been given orange food pellets will have a bright orange flesh, whereas farmed salmon that has not been given orange pellets will have a greyer flesh. Wild salmon has a bright orange flesh because they eat krill (smaller fish) which are a deep red and wild salmon is far more nutritious than farmed.

- High Quality Fats - It's important for your son to get some fat, and high quality fat like avocados, coconut oil, flax oil and oil found in cold water fish are all excellent sources. You might start with one type of fat and see if you can get your son to eat some every day. Be sure you remove the other fat in his diet, otherwise he may end up getting too many calories in the fats he eats.

Fruits & Vegetables - your son can eat any of these that he likes, and as much as he likes. Diversity is very important because each fruit and vegetable has it's own set up vitamins and minerals in it. In order for the body to get all the nutrients it needs, you need to think of eating all colors of the rainbow. Think about what is blue/purple/red. Purple grapes, blueberries, red cabbage, beets. What is orange? Carrots, oranges, winter squash. Try to offer him a variety of colored vegetables and fruits throughout the day.

Here's an easy way to start getting more good nutrition into your son. If your son like bananas, start with a banana smoothie. Mix fresh or frozen bananas in a blender with water or milk. If he likes flavors, then add fresh or frozen strawberries or blueberries or pineapple or orange juice or papaya or mango or any other soft fruits you can think of. You can mix and match too.

Offer this to him in a cup that he cannot see through and one that has a straw and tell him it is a banana smoothie or a strawberry banana smoothie (or whatever flavor he likes). Once you have found a smoothie that he likes, then add a little fresh spinach or fresh kale or fresh swiss chard or fresh deep green leafy lettuce to the smoothie. If you add just a little (a few leaves) he will not notice a difference in flavor, but it WILL turn green, and this is the reason for the cup that he cannot sea through.

Babies love green smoothies, and if you had started him on this when he was younger he would gladly drink it up even knowing it is green. But because he has become very particular in what he eats and what he does not eat, then it might be best to do this slowly, offering it in a cup that is not "see through".

Once he is accustomed to drinking a smoothie at least once a day, you will gradually be able to add more and more dark leafy greens. This is a super snack for little ones and it's packed with protein, iron, and a ton of good nutrients.

Here are 2 videos - the first shows you much 2 year olds love green smoothies, and the second one shows how to make a green smoothie.

Another tip is that children will usually eat what they prepare, so if you get your son involved in peeling the banana, and breaking it into the blender container and helping with the smoothie preparation he may be more open to trying it himself. It's also good for you to try it first and the say lots of oooohs and ahhhhhs, and mmmmms so he gets the sense that you have something that is really yummy.

And lastly I'd encourage you to make his milk a very minor part of his daily intake. If you want to give him a little on his cereal that's fine, but he really does not need milk if he is getting plenty of other healthy foods. If you want to give him more milk, make the milk a supplement rather than a main part of what he gets each day. Offer the milk at the end of a meal, but not as a snack and not during the meal because he may choose to fill up on milk instead of other more healthy foods.

If you simply don't offer the chocolate, cookies, milk and hot dogs, but instead, make other more healthy options available, he will eventually choose to eat those. You can keep bite sized pieces of chicken in the refrigerator and you could also offer a dip like salad dressing for him to dip the chicken in if he likes that better. Just watch to be sure he doesn't lick all the salad dressing off the chicken and then dip it back in only to lick the salad dressing off. You can also lightly steam carrots and keep those in the refrigerator for him to snack on.